Suspicion, a staking-out of territory, and office politics on a very public level are the central themes to Newcastle United's pre-season build-up.

The moment owner Mike Ashley at St James's Park and made him Director of Football,

July used to be all about running players back to fitness, bedding in a playing system, having a few slow paced friendlies, and signing new players to create some excitement and anticipation.

They do things slightly differently at St James's Park. You could generously call it creative tension.

How the Pardew/Kinnear dynamic works over the next few weeks and months will determine if the club lurches towards the wilderness again, beset by turmoil and unrest. Or ends up seizing the momentum that a few good results and a squad of players refreshed, and gunning for World Cup places, can bring.

The key lies in Kinnear's behaviour.

It's clear he's a spy in the camp for Ashley, who lost a degree of trust for Pardew last season with the relegation fright, but not enough to sack him.

Is Kinnear after Pardew's job? In the back of his mind, and when his delusional sense of still being the boss he was in the early 1990s comes to the fore, of course he is.

(Photo: Alison McDougall)

He'd gladly take over from Pardew tomorrow. He has said so in year old interviews. He is effectively the head of a shadow management team should Pardew be axed early this season.

Before that nightmare scenario, a couple of equally important questions.

Is Kinnear skillful enough to tip-toe through the complexities of the modern transfer system and actually sign big name players?

The evidence so far suggests not. Six weeks into the job, just ? As of Monday morning, Newcastle are the only top flight team yet to add a senior star to their ranks. Gomis, Gignac, Bent. No deal.

Kinnear was clearly a fantastic manager of a certain kind, in his day. But he has a ill-suited to the strategic, contact driven, skillfull world of deal-making of 2013.

Kinnear is, though, one of the few men to have a close and trusting bond with Ashley. Hours of drinking and chatting at the Orange Tree pub in Totteridge Village, on the outskirts of London, assured that when Joe talks, Mike listens.

Can Pardew and Kinnear work as an effective team to reinvigorate Ashley's interest in Newcastle United, get him fired up and wanting to invest in the team?

(Photo: Getty)

If Kinnear can fulfil a useful role at Newcastle this is it.

Get Ashley interested and ambitions for his team again, rather than simply clawing back the millions he has loaned it interest free. (Note: Ashely took back £11 million of his £140 million of loans in the last accounts, ensuring that rather than show a profit, the club broke even.)

Next key question? (that's a polite description) character resist interfering with Pardew's work on the training ground?

Perhaps this is the most important question of all. It is the question senior staff at Newcastle are monitoring closely.

Clear lines have been drawn. The message to Kinnear has been simple. They train the team. They pick the team. They deal with the players and their problems. They run the training ground. The team bus and dressing room are their environment, and theirs alone.

The further Kinnear stays away from the players on a day to day level, the simpler things will be.

If Kinnear pokes his nose in, and starts to wield the influence that has him telling folk

Ashley knows from experience how expensive a constructive dismissal case can be. Kevin Keegan won £2 million from an independent arbitration panel which found he was constructively dismissed in September 2008, after clashes with Newcastle's first (disastrous) foray in the DoFs, Dennis Wise.

(Photo: Splash)

One suspects that in the coming weeks, Kinnear will stick his nose into Pardew's training ground business and test the water. After all he's been telling everyone at the club that he "only answers to Mike."

Then the flash-point will come. Newcastle's season, and Pardew's future, will hinge on how it is resolved.

Meanwhile we await Kinnear's genius ( ) to build Pardew's squad. To instruct Ashley that they are short of two strikers (three if Papiss Cisse is sold).

Kinnear has to ensure that if Yohan Cabaye departs to PSG, Monaco or Manchester United (I believe this will happen if the price reaches £20 million-plus) that the cash HAS to be reinvested.

On the bright side, Fabricio Coloccini is back when we thought he wouldn't be. There are high hopes for Moussa Sissoko and Hatem Ben Arfa this season. Tim Krul is returning to fitness. Others like Davide Santon and Vurnon Anita will hopefully be stronger.

But Kinnear has to start pulling off some deals quickly to get Newcastle into a healthier position.